Hyperion by Dan Simmons

I listen to the audio book version of this sometimes to get to sleep. It's like a very very dark wizard of Oz that has been set in the future and whose Wicked Witch is the personofication of terrifying. The book is six stories that are centered around a core narritive of seven pilgrims traveling to that witches back garden.

The individuals and their stories are amazing, but placed together they form a background to this future world that makes them so plausable, so real without getting stuck explaining themselves.

Im hoping to do justice to the story, but also to go beyond the confines of the genres (scifi covers are all so similiar!)